Speaker: Akshay Mendhakar @Akshay
Affiliation: University of Warsaw & University of Vienna
Title: Text Mining Assisted Reading. A Didactic Implementation Report
Abstract (long version below): Text mining-enabled reading tools are being adopted more frequently by publishing houses. Our initial lab-based reports point to a positive influence of such technology on reading. However, it is unclear whether text mining can improve in a classroom setup. This study employs a 2 x 2 between-subject experiment (N= 40) design to evaluate the influence of text mining on narrative text reading. Our findings show a positive influence on all the subdomains of comprehension with Pride and Prejudice. This shows that text mining may have further-reaching societal implications than just an explorative method but can also act as a reading assistant in the classroom setting.
Long abstract
Text mining is an innovative method that has been used in several domains. As such, they have sparked multiple research possibilities and new avenues of usage (Hofmann & Chisholm, 2016; Allahyari et al., 2017). While the proliferation of text mining with non-fictional text types is well established, the applicability of these methods with fictional text types is still unclear. Two initial experiments in this direction (Mendhakar, 2022; Mendhakar& H S, 2023) show the influence of using such methods with fictional texts. Additionally, the use of text mining-enabled reading tools is being adopted more frequently by publishing houses. Multiple cross-sectional studies have also suggested that technology can help in reading especially for those who are new to a language (Edyburn, 2007; Biancarosa & Griffiths, 2012; Cheung & Slavin, 2012). Our initial lab-based reports point to a positive influence of such technology on reading. The boldface highlighting and Graphic Organizers extracted using text mining have been shown to improve reading comprehension and produce an absorbed state of reading. However, it is unclear whether such a positive influence can be noted in a didactic setup. Therefore, this study describes a Text mining-based reading experiment in a classroom setup. This study employs a 2 x 2 between-subject experiment (N= 40) design to evaluate the influence of text mining on narrative text reading. Our findings show a positive influence on all the subdomains of comprehension with Pride and Prejudice. This shows that text mining may have further-reaching societal implications than just an explorative method but can also act as a reading assistant in the classroom setting.